About Jack Ryan & John Clark:

Created by Tom Clancy in 1984, Jack Ryan is the protagonist of more than 15 novels written by Tom Clancy, but has also appeared in films written by others for the screen. The character is written as a Marine, CIA analyst, stockbroker and politician. Based in part on aspects of Clancy’s own life, including education, military service , even the character’s wife, Cathy Ryan, has the same education and occupation as Clancy’s wife.

Jack Ryan

Jack Ryan was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland in 1950. He earns a NROTC commission and attended Boston College, being medically retired shortly after following a helicopter crash on the Mediterranean island of Crete. He passes the Certified Public Accountant exams while waiting for the Marine Corps to assign him, and became a stockbroker and investment banker on his medical retirement.

Contacted by a CIA recruiter, he was approached to act as a consultant and analyst for the Agency, writing important documents and inventing methods of counter-espionage. Though initially hesitant to accept a permanent posting with the CIA, Ryan eventually succumbs to the advances of Admiral James Greer after a terrorist plot in London is foiled by Ryan, and a follow up attack severely wounds members of his family. Afterward, he is appointed as a permanent analyst for the Agency.

Personality

Heavily based on his own experiences, Tom Clancy wrote the character of Jack Ryan to reflect the views and interests he himself had in life. These include a strong sense of personal responsibility, personal and professional integrity, and patriotism. Jack Ryan is known to be very protective of his family, and to hold relatively conservative personal views.

Personal Life

Jack Ryan has a wife, Cathy Ryan, whom he met while being recruited by the powerful Wall Street firm Merrill Lynch. They quickly fall in love and are soon married. In addition to having a salubrious effect on Ryan’s personal life, shortly after meeting Cathy, Ryan throws his back out, due to the helicopter crash mentioned earlier. Cathy takes him to see a prominent neurosurgeon, who repairs the damage done by both the crash and the incompetent naval surgeons, which allows him to cancel the disability payments made to him by the government. He also has four children, the most prominent of which is Jack Ryan Jr., who has had several novels written about him as well.

John Clark

Initially introduced as a secondary character, Tom Clancy has stated that John Clark was written to reflect the darker side of the subject matter that he was writing about, allowing the character much more leeway when depicting morally and ethically ambiguous situations. Where as Jack Ryan is portrayed as an upstanding, black and white government figure, John Clark is much more intricate and sublte when dealing with compromising situations.

About John Clark

Born John Kelly in Indianapolis in 1944, he enlisted in the Navy during the Vietnam War, serving as a Navy SEAL until the culmination of his first tour of duty. He left the military, but was actively recruited into the CIA to once again serve in Vietnam, this time as an operative of the CIA’s Special Activities Division. At the same time, he is carrying on a personal vendetta against the drug syndicate that killed a former lover, complicating his situation withing the CIA.

Personal life

John Clark has been married twice, his first wife being killed in a car accident involving a tractor/trailer. After this marriage, he became involved with a one time prostitute, Pamela Madden. It was this relationship that was the impetus for the private war that John Clark carried out on a Colombian Drug Cartel, after they forced her to work as a drug courier, later shooting Clark and torturing and murdering Pamela Madden. During his recovery form the shooting involving Madden, He met his future wife, Sandy Madden, who was working as a nurse at Johns Hopkins Medical Center, where his recovery was taking place. John and Sandy Clark have two children, daughters,

Appearing in 11 of the novels, he has been called the most complicated and well written of Clancy’s characters, allowing the author to explore avenues that are closed to the more morally and legally upright Jack Ryan. The character’s change of name comes from the previously discussed private war waged against a Colombian drug cartel necessitating a name change and a staging of his own death. The CIA established the identity of John Clark so that they could continue to use the valuable asset.

Both characters have appeared together in numerous novels, the first of which was 1984 The Cardinal of the Kremlin, and have been featured both working together and sometimes at odds. The novel involves an intrigue surrounding a CIA mole, code named CARDINAL, working undercover in Moscow, whom Ryan is invested with protecting with the aid of Clark. The novel was featured on numerous bestseller lists, and convinced Clancy to continue writing the John Clark character into the novels, as a moral and ethical foil to Jack Ryan.

The series see the character reunited in 1988’s Clear and Present Danger, see the character of Jack Ryan thrust into the role of Acting Director of the CIA. One of the most widely read and recognizable novels in the series, it describes a covert operation conducted in the South American country of Colombia. John Clark has come into his own in this novel, making the transition form a secondary supporting character to more of a main character. The novel was an instant bestseller, and was adapted into a film starring Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan and Willem Dafoe as John Clark.

Future

With the death of Tom Clancy in October of 2013, the fate of his two most popular characters has been left in limbo, with many supporters thinking that the legacy of the Jack Ryan universe should be left as they are. There are a minority that think that a qualified author could continue on the saga, and that the modren literary landscape is devoid of entertaining and technical novels, and that continuing the series could benefit not only Clancy’s widow, but also his memory. With the future of the characters so uncertain, the only sure thing is that, with the slew of inferior and shoddily written tough military shoot-em-ups, Clancy’s work and characters based on Ryan and Clark area paragon of military, political, and espionage thrillers.

Interesting summary. Thank you for this! Just a little observation, you wrote the name Sandy Madden when it’s supposed to be Sandy O’Toole.

BOOK OF THE MONTH:

With the latest book in the Gray Man series by Mark Greaney coming out soon, we wanted to make the very first book in the series our book of the month.

Greaney is an incredible author and if you love the "lone badass" type of books then you will LOVE the Court "Gray Man" Gentry series. Read more about it.

Featured Series

It might seem like overkill, but we're giving The Gray Man series our featured series of the month.

Honestly this is such a great series and we feel not enough people read it so we want to push it. Read more about The Gray Man series and seriously if you haven't read it - start! Amazing thrillers.

Featured Author

Mark Greaney is an incredibly talented author. Not only does he write the Gray Man series however he also writes various Jack Ryan novels. Many feel he is the best writer of them and he truly is a great author. We're happy to award our author of the month to Mark Greaney.

Did You Know…

Bella Andre is a Stamford trained economist who uses her background to test market her covers and craft her key words and meta data tags to cleverly boost her sales.